


Purple Lips in the Summer.

by neocortex hunters (doubleinfinity)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Aftermath of Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, Murder Husbands, Mutual Abuse, Someone Help Will Graham, Still, Will Graham Doesn't Need Help, Will Loves Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:08:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doubleinfinity/pseuds/neocortex%20hunters
Summary: Hannibal leaves Will a bruised lover; Will is concerned more with something else.  He runs for the nearest train station, but Hannibal is always faster to intercept.





	

Purple and bruised; the coffee lid is smudged by red when he sets it down on the counter.

He can still feel the hands on him, groping for his pulse. The prying fists, tearing his brain from his heart. He wishes he could recreate the feeling of Hannibal’s knuckles against his jaw, throwing him to the ground and following him to it, magnetically bound to the voice he sought to share with those closest to him. Weeks later, his body is still erupting into welts and wounds, as if the metallic scent of blood against his nostrils is purposefully meant to trigger memories of Hannibal.

“I like that shade on you.” The neighbor on the stool beside him offers a napkin (corner triangle folded back), and Will holds up a hand to signal it’s unneeded. He uses the length of his forefinger to swipe the berry-dark leak away and looks forward, into his reflection in the cappuccino machine. Steam pours out of it, two streams as if from the nose of some metal lion, fogging up the glass bottles, thick with CARAMEL SWIRL and GLAZED DONUT syrups. He can inhale the scents from here. No cup can match the egg-shell portions of espresso that Hannibal poured/(dribbled?) for him, drizzling from k-cups that had no capitalized flavor, only pastel shades of color with some form of indecipherable coding intended.

Below the seat, Will’s feet hang, occasionally bumping against the parcels he quickly stuffed and plucked, filling with crumpled, ill-fitting articles of clothing and few significance-bearing items that are carried by the weight of sentiment. The overpacked blue and black bags, surely, have some room left for a paper carton of snacks, he reasons as he calls over a barista and directs her to package him a set of donuts.

He caves in the top of the carton and leans down to unzip the black duffel bag, shirt rising from his hips. There are purple and blue stains all about his skin, galaxies of bruises that cling to his flesh in small dots of red, expanded by the summer air and hidden below his fabric. Then there are the indents; marks from teeth that have yet to convex, distinct puncture marks that circle around the sucked-red skin, dry and flaking, much like the rest of him. His body is a museum of Hannibal’s, however temporary, and at least he can hold himself as a warning to all those who Hannibal has flashed his teeth to.

Will hops off the seat and pulls his bags over either shoulder, finding equilibrium between his blades. The air conditioning and the radiation of coffee clash, sending a sweet aroma sickly spiraling down his windpipe. He knows the moment he steps onto the sidewalk, the sun is going to spear him and gather sweat beneath the straps on his shoulders. With his back, he pushes against the door and finds immediately that it is overcast, the heat still swirling through the air but being blown in and out by a thin breeze that sends the tendrils of his outgrown hair whipping.

Bronze still clings to his skin, uv rays that have attached to his molecules and now cannot be pried out of his genetic makeup. Days with Hannibal sunken into the powdery, white sand, gathering heat that is washed away by the foaming tide pools that creep their way towards their chairs. Hannibal would watch the salty wind tangle Will’s hair, sticky and creamy with sunscreen at the nape of his neck, particles of sand getting caught in the lotion. Perhaps those were the days when he still could wear less in public and be little concerned about flaunting his injuries.

His hair now stumbles down his shoulders, twisting to scrape the chunks of skin that are revealed by his v-neck’s collar, which are tugged about by the luggage straps. The purplest skin is housed here, bare mortality of a different shade that has descended into a dark maroon, healing slowly.

“Where you going?”

Will lets go of the flimsy door, its bell tinkling overhead to muffle the sound of it crashing against its hinge. He turns and sees his friend Damien, cupping two mugs of coffee from the competing store down the block. The man offers his wife’s beverage to Will, but he declines, caffeine circulating through a stomach that is much more awake than his mind. Will looks better suited to a sloshing cup of brandy, anyhow.

A perfunctory smile falls across Will’s lips. “Train station,” he answers plainly, repositioning the parcels.

“I can see that.” A twisted, half-smile, offering a slight apology when he makes a face at Will’s bruises. “I meant to imply _post_ the station.”

“Ah.” Will feels the absence of tickets in his pocket. “I was figuring New Hampshire, maybe Maine. Somewhere the trees are so thick that the houses call on Thoreau. Somewhere where the motels are papered with pages ripped out of books because there isn’t anything vintage enough for them to afford.”

Damien grabs Will by the arm, halting him. “Slow down, Lucretia. There’s no monarchy for you to overthrow here. No reason for you to put yourself on a cross when there’s a police station right down the road.” He shades his eyes and looks for the sight of blue and red lights, a signal, a foretelling. “We can go together. If you run, he gets away with it.”

Narrowing his eyes, Will cocks his head. “What is it that you’re referring to?” he demands with the transparency of feigned ignorance, pulling his collar up until the discoloration is no longer visible.

Eyes shifting to make sure no one is listening, Damien leans in and whispers. “I know who did this to you. But your soul isn’t bound to your body. He is damned, already. Why let him get away with it in this life if he’s going to face judgement anyhow?”

Scoffing, Will crosses his arms over his chest. “I don’t believe in the afterlife-”

“How very Epicurian of you. If the soul is to be demolished anyways, then it is your duty to bring justice on this plane, isn’t it? How would you like to know equilibrium is broken because of you?”

“How very Just World Phenomenon of _you_ ,” Will hisses as he pulls away, bag slamming against his hip and sending a shock of pain through the tender area. “Really.” He turns, eyes fluttering. “I can manage my crusades on my own, thank you.”

Will grabs for his bags and shifts away, swiftly making for the bus that stops across the street. He gives a passing glance to Damien, but the male has already puffed out his cheeks and walked away.

ᘎ

Hannibal is in his car before he can sort through the folders in the kitchen for notes and receipts, clues that would be able to guide him to where Will had gone. Instead, he traces the fine print of his memory as he jumps into the vehicle, smoothing out his shirt as he grabs the steering wheel and speeds out of the driveway. The sun washes white the entirety of their concrete lawn, stifled growth that would flourish in its brick photosynthesis.

Focused on the linear road, he scans over words passed between them, phrases jumping out at him. He has an image of Will walking through the Vatican, neck craned up at the gold and royal blue ceiling. Will slinks into his imagination, sometimes. It’s the way that his carefully sculpted jaw and marble-embellished chest fit into photographs and fantasies without effort, as if he was designed to blend, an eclectic palate all of its own colors, as vibrant as modern art, as cracked as old watercolor bubbles thick on a canvas. He owns the rustic reds of barnyards, the evergreen of the forest, bright hues of yellow and coffee-tinted bronze that fit in with the most beautiful girls throughout time. Yet it is Hannibal, in his dark shadow of blue, who stands witness to the changing schemes of red and purple. And it is he, himself, inflicting the transformation.

But for some reason, Hannibal can only picture Will in his natural habitat right now: huddled in Wolf Trap, Virginia, peering at the graying skies through his dusky eyelashes.

He turns the steering wheel in his direction, and does not stop until he is at the foot of the whistling train, toes slamming down on the gas and intercepting it in the parking lot before it can pick its passengers and drive off again.

ᘎ

Eyes narrowed, Will studies a map through eyes that are purposefully not tinted with tears that roll to the edge of his lashes and stream down his cheeks in an endless tap, purified on their journey to the back of his hand as he slashes them away. He has spent too much time nestled into his elbow on the edge of the bed, ceasing his rolling throat from making noises loud enough to wake the beast. A messy combination of salt, sweat, and blood has been smeared across his face long enough, painting him a color most attractive to the cannibal.

The train shudders and stops, another station slipping between the glass to replace his memory of the prior one. He folds the blue paper and smooths his finger over the top, leaving only the map’s colored key visible. There is an inked rumor stating that there are thirty-three stops remaining, and a hidden message that implies he did _not_ supply enough caffeine to survive the next hours of travel. With his fingers still straining against the asymmetrical edge of the incorrectly creased paper, he finds his head lolling against the pane, yet does not restrain himself from unconsciousness.

He is not sure which detail disturbs his idle mind; what brand of stimulus works it way through the thick bedrock filled with steaming and eddying images. It happens in a one-moment’s interval: the plastic seat cushion below him depresses, the glossy pamphlet is slid out from under his fingers, and a jacket, compressed into the shape of a square, coasts between his skull and the glass. As his eyes flutter open, they fall upon the sight of two roughly veined hands folding the map until it’s symmetrical and miniature, then tucking it into a leather-bound book. Hannibal’s fine motor skills are sharp and careful, and as Will traces his sight up the figure’s neck and to his face, those large particles of competence and demeanor expose themselves- even in the finest of designs.

Hannibal smiles to himself, a private show of teeth that are demonstrated carefully. There is a flash of red from his upper gums, which is quick to be suppressed by lips. “I would rather assume you thought I would decline to look for you than suppose that you thought I would not know _where_ to find you.”

Stiff-shouldered, Will turns to face Hannibal with eyes lowered. “And… why make efforts to interlope, rather than meet me where you know you will find me? Why take that chance?” There is an inability for him to attach his words to figure. It plays almost as simply as the notion that his brain has dissociated from the cartilage, and the images on his retina register no semantics. Hannibal is a given, his presence dictates no awe. And even after all of this time, he still feels he cannot see Hannibal’s face clearly in his memory. He lifts his eyes and that severe, playful yet dark crease that kneads between Hannibal’s brow is coaxing him, urging his questioning, and answering before Will can arrange the words under his tongue. His only memory of Hannibal is this one, the one that has aligned this delicate moment; all moments are fragile in the brief air between their exposed and sheltered thoughts.

Hannibal wounds the juncture, urging on the next.

“Furry things return home, Will, as you know.” He plucks the folded map out of the book. “Instinctively, there is a self-designed central locus to which all things lead. You believe that to be your home.” He charts the location on the paper and hands it to Will. “I am the centermost beacon in your being, equidistant from each one of your fears, desires- even the beginnings of every plan. This was a train to me.” He lowers his tone and leans in, adding on quietly. “You did not need to find the bare bones of your psychical residence just to realize that it did not place you at the center of yourself.”

A moment of truth crosses Will’s face, not at Hannibal’s sentences, but at the vulnerability that he realizes he possesses. “You are shifting, Hannibal,” he murmurs over the rumble of wheels, over track and stone. “Your center.” When he rises to his feet, Hannibal merely follows the action and steps into the corridor, moving politely aside to allow Will the room exit the booth.

As he leaves, he turns to Hannibal. “I am changing you and you don’t know where to look for yourself. You won’t realign anything by pursuing me.” Then he is walking down the rolling aisle, Hannibal watching his back with adoring eyes.

Will has reached front of the carriage by the time he understands that he is still being tracked. Close to him are the glass dividers that a captain will open upon the next stop, and to his right, a small bathroom entrance expressing its vacancy. A hand seizes him by the back of his neck while an arm circles around him, simultaneously looping him in the older’s grasp as Hannibal’s free hand slides open the bathroom door. Gently, Will is pushed inside, though it isn’t until he hears the door closed and locked that his snatch of hair is released.

Hannibal’s voice is deceivingly rough where Will observes nothing but benign curiosity in his touch and expression.

“What you said to me just now is to be expected from a scorned lover grappling for derision. But you do not intend to spite, and I have doubt that you are using an excuse to separate yourself from me simply by stating I’ve ‘changed.’ I’m interested in what evidence you have procured, and for what reason you are prepared to present it to me.”

He stifles his lips to grant Will the opportunity to speak, but Will is almost overlapping his previous sentence by the time he fully closes them.

“I found your _teeth,_ Hannibal.”

His tone shakes, unsure of itself, behaving as if illicit and in violation of some unspoken compliance between them. Hannibal controls his expression, though his head tips of its own accord. He instantly recognizes Will’s reference, though a multitude of purposes for his using it as a primary defense flitter through the older’s mind. “I followed through with a standard dental surgery the weekend of the twentieth,” he affirms, picturing the bloodied bag of four lateral incisors that he’d brought home.

Will is not distracted. The walls around them are so close they seem to be collapsing onto one another, yellowed confines coalesced by bumps that rise from below the plaster. He can feel Hannibal advancing while he slowly gathers his thoughts, returning to the memory of the teeth in the drawer and the way that Hannibal’s sharp smile looks no less full. Their chests come together, Hannibal taking Will into an assured embrace that is tinged with fiery knuckles, which trail up and down the younger’s back.

He can find it in himself to manage a whisper. “Your hygiene is not something that often demands to be kept after by a person in uniform...”

“Are you suggesting,” Hannibal iquires as he tugs at Will’s lips with his own, “That I prompted the removal of my own teeth for private purposes?”

Will breaks away and presses himself backwards, restraining Hannibal with two palms against his sternum. “You observe how you harm me, for I watch your eyes travel over my wounds. I have felt the hesitation of your teeth as they split my skin. The reluctance to restrain me harder when I thrash. The pause when you move in a way that conjures a noise from my throat.” Hannibal watches Will with an eye focused on the inflection. “Your nature is to play with your feast only so long as you can sustain the meal. It’s not like you to exercise empathy. It is not your disposition to see the meat as loved for more than its ultimate purpose.”

Hannibal’s watch flickers throughout and then across Will. What a remarkable boy, he thinks in a quiet space that his mind has opened up, letting his eyes close in thought for a beat more than accepted. He feels that his voice does not connect to his lips. “This is because I have not eaten you. Yes, Will?”

Will feebly regards him. “The very fact that I am alive volunteers the implication that you are not who you were when I first met you.”

A quiet hand snakes around Will’s neck, drawing him close. Hannibal’s poised lips purse in thought. His crisp, smoothed suit and cultured expression clash horribly with the environment, but if Will has to analyze the pull of each, he believes the bathroom is warping around the man, gaining regimented elegance in the form of false stature and claustrophobic charm. The words Hannibal speaks in response are hot and firm on his lips; he can’t help but find himself parting for the sentence.

“Be not afraid of my nature where you could yearn to save yourself.” Fingers are stroking Will’s nape, clutching hard. His mouth travels to Will’s ear, where he speaks in such a whisper it takes straining to hear. “I plan on eating you slowly. Thoroughly am I chewing through the cartilage between your worries and desires.” Hannibal leans back, gripping the younger, a triumphant smile on his face. “Sharp teeth give me only the easy temptation of a ravishing. I refuse to swallow you all at once. There is flesh and brain meant to be savored, and not even the animal in me can prevent me from lapping at you until you have been devoured. You have changed me, yes.” He tips his head. “The chemicals of yours I’ve digested have arranged me anew.” He looks off to the side. “However, my intentions never waver.”

He shows pride, gleaming, in his expression. Will watches him carefully, in some ways dumbfounded, ignited, afraid, and unsurprised. Hannibal does not kiss him them. Hannibal simply licks at the surface of Will’s shivering resolve.


End file.
